Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday October 05, 2011 @12:18AM
from the citation-not-needed-if-it-bugs-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Proposed legislation under debate in Italy has Wikipedia warning of a shutdown for the Italian version of the site. They say the law would create 'a requirement to all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.' They further explain. 'Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge — the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required, in order to impose such correction to any website. Hence, anyone who feels offended by any content published on a blog, an online newspaper and, most likely, even on Wikipedia can directly request the removal of such contents and its permanent replacement with a "corrected" version, aimed to contradict and disprove the allegedly harmful contents, regardless of the truthfulness of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources.'"

But it would be suitable to shut down the Italian Wikipedia - at least for a while - to specify that there is a problem. The big problem is "without any comment", not the change - since Wikipedia has a history with the old pages accessible for those that want to have the uncensored version.

As for Wikipedia, it also depends on where the servers are located.

From a political point of view this seems to be primarily aimed at protecting high-ranking politicians fro

The problem is also in the "within 48 hours" part. You can't have a blog and go on vacation without risking *massive* fines when you're back if somebody got offended by what you wrote on it while you weren't checking your email.

In Italy, using anti-defamation laws to intimidate honest journalists is a national sport (that's why we have so few free reporters). This law will make this practice "a commodity", so that even normal citizens will think twice before saying something about anyone over the web (not only high-ranking politicians - it's especially low-ranking people, think e.g snake oil vendors, who resort to these means to defend their lawn).

There was a very famous case in the UK where an associasion of homeopaths sued a journalist for libel after he wrote an article pointing out that their medicines are nothing but water and utterly ineffective.

I realize that after reading what happens here you may think this is the Banana Republic, but until Mr. B. manages to rip all the laws and the constitution, we still have a decent law corpus (ok, besides the things to go way back to the Duce and the Romans...)

What you describe can happen anytime also in Italy. Laws to protect people from defamation are already in place. The difference is that only a *judge* can force you to take down a page while waiting for a trial.

It probably also apply to all content, not just content specifically in Italian. In which case the entirety of Wikipedia is threatened - assuming, of course, that anyone really gives a bugger about what some half-arsed country puts into law.

I'd say just move the servers offshore, and don't log the IP addresses of anyone who edits content.

So if an opposition politician puts in complaints about official websites then he gets to rewrite them? Or would it be limited to the websites of political parties as a means of political chaos? I think they just invented a new national sport.

Yeah I had the same thought. or even... all the members of the notorious Anonymous could submit a constant stream of corrections they find offensive, and as soon as the site gets re-written, another member can claim that re-write is offensive. In fact, some industrious trolling could completely collapse the.it domain. And what about search results? Is there a bing or google search result that is offensive? People might be able to make constant, non-stop requests that search results be edited because the results were offensive.

I am overwhelmed at the potential for electronic mayhem that this law provides. There are so many ways, so many things. Its like, Italy is making the Internet Troll an official part of their government!

If someone who is offended can require a correction be made without comment, then surely anyone else can be offended by the correction and have it reverted - without comment.

Not quite that simple to get around. It has to be something about you that you find offensive. It doesn't matter if you find something written about someone else offensive (at least as far as this law is concerned anyway).

Not quite that simple to get around. It has to be something about you that you find offensive.

It's possible something was lost in the Wikipedia translation, but their wording was "any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image", not "about the applicant". The sky is the limit.

Not quite that simple to get around. It has to be something about you that you find offensive.

It's possible something was lost in the Wikipedia translation, but their wording was "any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image", not "about the applicant". The sky is the limit.

In other words a comment like "All Lawyers are stupid" would have to be corrected to "All non-Italian Lawyers are stupid" because Italian lawyers could find the statement detrimental to the image.

I find it offensive that you have stated I might find something offensive. Obviously, "you" refers specifically to me, and therefore you must state that I cannot be offended, or I will continue to be offended.

More to the point, anybody can be offended about anything, so we best swamp all major italian websites (news papers, government websites,...) with complaints. Make them as silly as possible. Make them as offensive to further 3rd parties as possible. By law, they are forced to publish them. Do this for a couple of weeks, and watch the Italian web grind to a painful halt.

Btw, to which address should the request be sent? Many websites have no obvious webmaster address, and often the addresses in whois are un

Do you think the Wikipedia page on North Korea confoms to the laws of North Korea? The wikipedia article itself, in the span of two sentences, shows that it's not a legal article there:

In its 2010 report, Reporters Without Borders ranked the freedom of the press in North Korea as 177th out of 178, above only that of Eritrea.[136] Only news that favors the regime is permitted...

I don't hear anyone threatening to pull it down.

The law itself is abysmal, but there's no reason for it to affect Wikipedia. It strikes me that in making this claim, Wikipedia is taking up a political fight. Wikipedia is not in any danger from the law, they're theatrically threatening to pull out, despite being unaffected, in order to draw attention to this. I'm against this abhorrent and ridiculous law, but I'm not in favor of Wikipedia making exaggerated claims and throwing its weight around on political issues.

Perhaps Italians who have to live in Italy, just might be subject to Italian no matter where they hosts and are probably strongly represented in the group of people who administrate Italian Wikipedia??

If that were the case people in Italy administering or writing on the English version of Wikipedia would be faced with the same problem... and you would be able to keep supporting Italian Wikipedia with contributors from outside Italy.

I agree with this proposition, that the language being edited is irrelevant. The issue here is how it impacts collaborative writing projects involving Italian citizens rather than simply a particular language edition of Wikipedia.

What is significant here is that the Italian language version of the the project generally already conforms to Italian law in part because the policies have been established by people who are familiar with that country's laws. The threat here is that the volunteers are suggesting a nuclear/scorched earth option that if they are not going to be legally permitted to edit or maintain Wikipedia, that they simply want to get rid of the whole project altogether. At least that is my gist of what the threat listed on the Italian language edition [wikipedia.org] of Wikipedia is trying to say.

Even more significant, the volunteers at the Italian language edition of Wikipedia hosted a 24 hour "blackout" after considerable discussion [wikipedia.org] that was supported by the greater Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees [wikimedia.org] that essentially gave a blank check support to the Italian language volunteers as well as the "Wikimedia Italia" local chapter in their fight on this particular issue. While it may not be strictly necessary to shut down the project in America, the net effect is essentially the same if the volunteer community simply pulls the plug.

Since many people in Italy use Wikipedia as a resource in their native language, the volunteers want the Italian people to realize just how serious this issue is to them, and how a very valuable resource can simply disappear if this law is allowed to stand. In that sense, I think this "blackout" was a very good idea. The real "news for nerds" isn't the law... even if that is the trigger... but the fact that Wikipedia blanked itself out yesterday and this morning (depending on what time zone you live in) with the Italian language edition.

The fact that legally speaking it seems like we are moving into a world where the lowest common denominator seems to be prevailing in terms of how you conduct yourself with international projects on the internet, this is an issue even with other language editions of Wikipedia or for that matter even Slashdot.... assuming Italian citizens participate with posts here. In the case of Slashdot, they are going to be forced by the Italian law to respond to any potential slander or "misrepresentation of fact" by removing content in a fashion similar to the DMCA. Note that the DMCA only covers blatant copyright violations, where as this law covers much more (hence the slander or "misrepresentation" issues) where take-down notices can be filed for practically any reason at all and must be dealt with or you will be facing international legal injunctions that might be recognized by American courts due to "intellectual property" treaties.

There is some real teeth in the issue here, and one that sadly might start impacting other websites over time as well. Even worse, there seems to be a tendency for laws of this nature to spread to other countries, where there certainly are several Europhiles in the American government who love to adopt laws like this into American society once they have been established "over there". This is a canary in a coalmine, so to say, and the canary is dying. At stake here is the concept of free speech altogether, especially for such a seductive concept for the expansion of government authority over the printed word.

I don't think prosecuting a username would be a particularly effective means of enforcement, and with the hosting outside their jurisdiction it's hard to see how they could force Italian Wikipedia to reveal anyone's IP address.

...allowed in the European Union? It really compromises the image of the whole entity that they have no problem with this absurd level of corruption. This is obviously another censorship/media control ploy by Berlusconi, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was specifically designed to hurt Wikipedia.

This is definitely an issue, but their justice system is a joke and their politicians have immunity from prosecution IIRC. As long as those facts remain facts there is little hope of Italy joining the modern world. I mean hell, they still try people in absentia and expect to extradite the convicted afterwards.

If you are referring to Cesare Battisti, hed nominated his lawyers and sent testimony to his trial. He also had the option to attend the trial any time, but decided not to. The trial was deemed just by the EU supreme court: he should be in prison by international law.

There have been and there are many wrongs in Italy but this is not one. The discredit that we erned with the current politicians hurts us even when we are in the right.

Actually in most countries the politicians in parliament have immunity, but will take a vote on removing it on a case by case basis. This means that the immunity is more or less symbolic in these cases, but if you do like the Italians do and never vote on it, the immunity becomes very real. Berlusconi had a law added that makes it impossible to remove the immunity on the prime minister (himself) or a former such (again himself), but this law might be eliminated when he loses power.

You can think that Berlusconi is dirty and corrupt and abuses his power to avoid prosecution, but the other side of the coin is that his enemies fight equally dirty and use every means to impeach, accuse and obstruct, and any leader needs some form of protection against things like this or we end up with mob rule and chaos.

Italy is a very polarized country. They have a decent sized Communist Party (one of the last in Europe) and at least two extreme-right fascist parties, one of which is the very one that was aligned with Hitler and which is headed by the granddaughter of the very man that partnered with Hitler: Benito Mussolini. Her name is Alessandra Mussolini. The polarization is only surpassed by the amount of corruption as Italy is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. Perhaps that's why a civil war hasn't broken out yet - people haven't been bribed enough to take up arms...;)

The polarization is only surpassed by the amount of corruption as Italy is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. Perhaps that's why a civil war hasn't broken out yet - people haven't been bribed enough to take up arms...;)

Many things are strange in Italy, the north is the richest region of Europe, and the south is the poorest region of Europe (and yes that includes Rumania in the south and Skandinavia and Swi

...allowed in the European Union? It really compromises the image of the whole entity that they have no problem with this absurd level of corruption. This is obviously another censorship/media control ploy by Berlusconi, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was specifically designed to hurt Wikipedia.

I think EU is essentially in the cross-roads of three alternative paths:

Keep going on like this, from crisis to crisis, with disparity in levels of democracy and wealth between different parts of the Union.

Turn in to a Federation, subordinating national parliaments to one Federal Parliament in Brussels.

Split into two or more sub-Unions (Corrupt South, Torn East and Prosperous North).

I feel like the second path is the only feasible way to proceed. First option means ever-continuing disparity within the Union, which will stall its political and economic development forever. Third option is a solution, but not a very constructive one. It would mean a new divide in Europe, akin to the times of the Cold War, and a step back of over seven decades politically.

If EU became a Federation with a corpus of Federal Law, and national legislation became subject to repeal by Federal courts, it would truly make EU a uniform, legally homogenous area, where all EU citizens and businesses would really have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities from the shores of Black Sea in Romania to the Atlantic cliffs in Ireland, and from the tip of Gibraltar in Iberia to the rural fells of Lapland. Doing business and living in Europe would become ever more easier, as human rights would be universally respected.

Maybe the current crisis will have only one possible outcome: the establishment of the Federal Government of the European Union.

There would still be a million different languages. As much as some might want to ignore that, it's a massive barrier to very close European union. Until there is a 'European' language, it aint gonna happen. Different countries must, and will, maintain their sovereignty.

The "tiny" part is key. Smaller countries are more homogeneous (even if there are dozens of dialects of the same language), and being surrounded by countries speaking those other languages, there's political and economic advantages to speaking them all.

Canada is officially bilingual English-French, but only one province is and it isn't Quebec.

Quebec is French-only and there is a lot of resentment over many federal jobs with a bilingual requirement even when the job itself doesn't need it. The feeling is exa

...allowed in the European Union? It really compromises the image of the whole entity that they have no problem with this absurd level of corruption. This is obviously another censorship/media control ploy by Berlusconi, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was specifically designed to hurt Wikipedia.

Because the EU is almost entirely a economic union, and hasn't been given authority in the general political, judicial or social areas.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, Italy is a member for a very solid reason: they were one of the founder members of the EEC. It's hard to justify kicking them out of an organisation that was founded by the Treaty of Rome.

Italy was never "allowed in". Italy is a founding member (along with France, Germany and Benelux) and was never held to any standard for joining.
As an Italian I am pretty sure that if we were to be kicked out of the EU we would take the place behind Turkey in the line to come back in.

The whole point of the EU is to keep the leaders on speaking terms, no matter what happens and no matter how great the disagreement.

Although the U in EU suggests we're a union, we actually are not. Although Brussels thinks it has a lot of power, and constantly tries to get more power, the reality is that any country can do whatever they want at any time.

Don't worry its work in progress. We started with their credit rating.... next it will be their currency.... and then their membership. They can go and start a "Loser's Union" with Greece, Portugal, and Turkey.

First, Berlusconi and his cronies control the traditional media in Italy. Making something difficult for their competitors is in their direct financial interest. This also works well because a major reason they can stay in power are elderly individuals who don't understand and are scared by all this new-fangled technology. At this point, Berlusconi is clearly one of the most corrupt and incompetent politicians ever in Italy. This whole thing would be funny if not for the fact that this womanizing shmuck is in charge of one of the largest economies in Europe during an ongoing financial crisis. It seems to me that this sort of thing might actually be enough for the sane Italians to wake up and realize how fucked up their government is. Th But so far, they've had a lot of crazy crap and haven't yet done so, and Wikipedia itself is not nearly as popular in Italy as it is in some other languages. (For example, the German Wikipedia is extremely popular in the German speaking world.) So I'm pessimistic.

It seems to me that this sort of thing might actually be enough for the sane Italians to wake up and realize how fucked up their government is. Th But so far, they've had a lot of crazy crap and haven't yet done so, [...]

... but the risk is that soon we will be forced to actually delete it.

Why does a language section of Wikipedia have to close down because of a country? Aren't there enough Italian speaking people outside Italy to matter? Why not just block visitors from Italy (meaning: show them the message that it's the fault of that law that Wikipedia can't work in Italy)?Maybe some Italian article would be useful to me even though I'm not Italian nor speak Italian (there are translators). Why does everyone else have to suffer?

To draw the attention to the problem. Trust me, noone cares about the rights untill it comes back to them and bites them in the back soft spot. When most of italians are unable to browse wikipedia and see a disclaimer that due to their laws it is impossible to operate in that country — then it's more likely that this law will be scrapped.

So... Italian law might allow anyone to rewrite history on Wikipedia. How is that significantly different than how Wikipedia already functions? If someone is offended by something on Wikipedia, they can submitedit the article. And within 48 hours (seconds actually) it will be present without comment. And then 10 seconds later, someone else will have corrected it back to the truth.

It just means that the never-ending back and forth with regards to notability, sources and other policy will be legally protected, and impossible to end. Wikipedia couldn't function as an entity if the circlejerk of administrators and reach-around editors couldn't force through their interpretation of policy du jour.

I think it can be taken as read that if the law requires something to be published, the law requires it to remain published. You can't circumvent it by saying "the correction was there for 30 seconds, it's just somebody changed it." It absolutely will have to remain.

Unfortunately, the law being discussed at the moment simply extends an obligation present in an older law to all Internet sites (it previously only applied to newspsapers). I can't find any detail of the older law, and most of the discussion

We've had this shit before with Google and Youtube. Italy's Wikipedia doesn't need to be hosted in Italy. They can block it for a while and throw a tantrum, but will come to their senses eventually. If it comes to it, the EU could start an enquiry for violation of its charter; it seems likely free speech is somewhere in there.

In 2006 Italians were already sick and tired of Berlusconi. The left-wing coalition were already planning a glorious victory, the problem is that it's a coalition formed basically by all politicians screwed by Berlusconi that inclusdes from catholics to communists, people who have in common little more than thair hatred for Berlusconi. Even before the election they were fighting for the best offices in the coming government scaring many people. Eventually they won anyway but they spent two years just bicker

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it.wikipedia.org isn't hosted in Italy [wikimedia.org]. Ergo, the authorities aren't in a position to fine or arrest anyone posting "defamatory" material... unless an offending editor resident in Italy drops a bit too much identifying material on their personal page. Seems like more of a PITA than a deal breaker.

Yes, the servers are located in America (Florida specifically), but the problem is that most of the volunteers and certainly the "top" volunteers on the Italian language edition of Wikipedia ("bureaucrats" and "administrators") all live in Italy and thus are subject to Italian law. Furthermore, the "Wikimedia Italia" chapter which is responsible for the fundraising that helps support the Italian language edition of Wikipedia is headquartered in Italy and also subject to Italian law.

In Germany, it has always been the law that if a newspaper publishes something about you that you think isn't true, they have to publish what you say. So in the next edition you would read something like "We wrote xxx. Mr. X complained about this, and we are required by law to tell you that he claims yyy. This is not necessarily the truth. ".

The best one I ever read was this followed by "we published the article because we received a declaration under oath that xxx is true. We now also received a declaration under oath that xxx is false. We don't know which one, but we know someone lied under oath and passed both statements to the police."

It really depends on what exactly this law says. Best case Wikipedia adds a button where any person who feels offended can post what they claim is the truth, without modifying the article.

As an Italian I'm absolutely disgusted by the power of anti-defamation laws. These laws result not only in a severe limitation of free speech but also harm all progress. It's very easy to find that your political opponent or your business competitor is defaming you. Threatening with the law is first and then comes suing.

A likely root to this issue with defamation is "la bella figura". Italians value good appearance and decorum.

But we Italians basically reduce ourselves to 3rd rate individuals by impos

It's not as bad as the laws in various parts of Europe that send people to prison for various speech crimes. Germany has it's holocaust denial penalty, and IIRC the UK just sent somebody to prison for trolling.

If those things are permissable under the EU's charter, then I'm not sure I see how this would be any more egregious of a violation.

To suggest it was simply for trolling is somewhat understating the matter. While I agree that he shouldn't have gone to prison, we are talking about an extended and targetted campaign of obscene harrassment against individuals who had done nothing at all to the perpetrator. 18 weeks in prison (of which he will only serve 9 unless he reoffends after leaving) seems justifiable. OTOH, as the offence is simply a symptom of the guy's Asperger's syndrome, he probably shouldn't have been punished for it at all.

It is a long-held belief that freedom of speech extends only as far as it does not cause harm to others, which is acknowledged both in the US and here in Europe. Harrassment causes harm, and therefore should not be permitted under the banner of freedom of speech. In the US, this is the relevant statute he could have been prosecuted under [cornell.edu], and would have been eligible for a much longer prison sentence had he been convicted.

Holocaust denial, OTOH, is an entirely different matter, and I can see no justification at all in laws that prevent it.

Holocaust denial, OTOH, is an entirely different matter, and I can see no justification at all in laws that prevent it.

I'm of the contrary standpoint. Denial of scientific or historical facts in public, should be under punishement. Regardless what the topic is. Especially if done by an administrative office or a person holding such a position.Everyone has the right to know facts, teaching your children nothing about the holocaust or even telling them "it did not happen" deprives them from their right to kno

That's great! Now we just need to amend the definition such that "Criticizing the Party" and "Drawing a Picture of Mohammad" aren't Free Speech, and we'll have converted China and Iran to Western Democracy!

Oh, the things you can accomplish by dicking around with definitions. Next I'm going to redefine billionaire and be rich!

Perhaps you are unaware of the details of the trolling in question, which was (IALTB) graphically obscene descriptions of the sexual acts the troll wanted to perform on the victims' dead relatives' corpses. Sending unsolicited obscene messages has long been held to not be protected by free speech laws, both in the EU and the US, and I can't say as I see any reason to disagree with this.

I am reminded of Ghost Busters where it is said it is every New Yorker's God given right to be an asshole. It is most certainly Free Speech.

Coincidentally, the troll in this case broke quite a few of the ten commandments or whatever equivalent your preferred god has.Whether it's a legal right can be debated, but it most certainly isn't a god given right.

Can I again request for the corrected version to be taken down claiming it hurts me while the other party does the same ad-infinitum? Where does the buck stop?

Fool of a Took! This is about job creation. Everyone knows that the Italian job market needs a bit of a kick-a-long. This makes highly skilled IT positions as people continue to update information. The buck stops with them, silly billy!

Which is precisely the problem when some judge sees the log history of such a bot and treats that action as contempt of court (or the local Italian equivalent) that could escalate into criminal proceeding. This whole thing makes a joke of the principles of Wikipedia to maintain article neutrality, so you have to provide every nut job and fanatic a platform to say whatever they want and however they want to say it.

Can you imagine if the article on Apollo 11 was changed to say that Stephen Cobert was the fir

Can please USA invade us, and get complete control of our nation?
We are not capable of doing that ourselves, it seems.. i'm serious!
Part of the package will be free access to colosseum and pizza 4 everyone..

Having the symbol of the Eagle everywhere will remind you of old times too...